


Lessons Worth Learning

by JustAnotherGhostwriter



Series: NaNo Meets Whumptober [8]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Al has to rescue Ed again, Bad Things Happen Bingo Prompt: Tortured for Information, F/M, Flashbacks to Al's recovery time in hospital, Gen, Kidnapping, Moderate descriptions of torture, Parental Roy and Riza, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Series, Sickfic, Whumptober Prompt: Bruised, tags and characters will be updated when chapter two arrives
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21591796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherGhostwriter/pseuds/JustAnotherGhostwriter
Summary: Not all are pleased that Mustang is rebuilding Ishval. Ed is snatched for the information he has on the rebuilding efforts, and Al is the only one around to save him. But as soon as Al gets his brother away from human hands that want to hurt him, he has to somehow meet the requirements of surviving in the desert, alone, hurt, with an unconscious brother and men hot on his heels.In hindsight, he would have spent longer fighting the elements if he knew the price rescue would come at.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric & Riza Hawkeye, Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric & Roy Mustang, Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric & Team Mustang
Series: NaNo Meets Whumptober [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533689
Comments: 22
Kudos: 83





	Lessons Worth Learning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two of this fic, based on the Whumptober prompt 'Recovery', was also supposed to be written and posted as part of this challenge. Unfortunately, due to life, I won't be able to get to it by the end of November. Luckily for me, I was more verbose than I anticipated, and I still managed to reach 50k without chapter two and the other whole fic I had planned for another fandom. 
> 
> The recovery chapter _will_ come. Some time. Eventually. I'm not sure if this is a threat or a consolation to you, dear reader, but I make the statement anyway. 
> 
> I draw your attention to the 'platonic cuddling' tag on this fic. There's going to be a lot of platonic physical touch in this first chapter, and so I'd like to plainly state that _none_ of it was intended to have any romantic subtext or undertones; it's purely familial love and comfort. 
> 
> A huge thanks to [thephilosophersapprentice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thephilosophersapprentice/pseuds/thephilosophersapprentice), who gave me the headcanon of Ed's right arm and nerve damage, and more headcanons that pertain directly to chapter two. Because of our chats, I was finally able to figure out how to put an idea that had been buzzing in my head for a post-canon fic into this NaNo challenge prompt fill. Which also meant that this fic got several times more angsty than the original idea I put down. Oh well.

It was strange that Al had fallen in love with the desert so quickly. The barren terrain and harsh environment gave him everything he hadn’t had for so long – heat, cold, sensation, exhaustion, thirst, physical effort – and limited the usefulness of sight and sound, once the only two senses that had remained to him. Or... Perhaps that was exactly _why_ he’d fallen in love with the desert’s endless, stinging sand and high standards for survival so quickly. One moment he was sure that he’d hated it, the first few nights he’d made his crossing to Xing. Another part of him remembered himself staying up late just to watch the stars and rhythmically sift sand through his fingers. He was finding it difficult to tell past memories from fiction and difficult to order his thoughts properly – that was either just the dehydration and hunger and sleeplessness talking, or he’d hit his head a little harder than he’d thought. The headache was bad, but manageable, and there was no longer any blood when he probed the area. Nor was there a buzzing or ringing in his ears; there wasn’t anything except the roaring of near-perfect silence.

Ed coughed, wet and gasping and desperate, and the sound echoed horribly off the ruins around them. Internally berating himself for not noticing his brother had slipped down into a slump while he’d sat and thought about nothing of importance, Al gently hitched Ed back up against him, futilely trying to avoid pressing on any major injuries. The silence was now punctured by Ed’s harsh wheezing right in Al’s ear, the chill of the desert night broken now by the radiating heat of his brother’s fever.

Al would have preferred being cold and trapped in the fathomless quiet.

He tucked Ed closer to him, pulling his ragged, torn, dirty jacket around them both as best as he could. The position he sat in had surpassed discomfort and moved firmly into painful hours ago, but Ed could only barely win the fight for every breath if he was upright, and he was too weak to fight the pull of gravity without Al propping him up.

The crumbling stone pillar was mercilessly uncomfortable behind him, and Al shut his eyes and catalogued every biological discomfort and every bruise in the long list that marred him, both the small and the colourfully debilitating, reminding himself that each was a blessing that had been bought at a cost.

* * *

“You’re going to get in trouble,” Al whispered hoarsely as he felt the covers to the bed peel back.

But Ed had ignored many more heart-felt, logical protests from his younger brother before; this one was so easy for him to swat aside he didn’t even bother answering. And so, a beat after he’d settled, Al laboriously turned himself around and snuggled into his brother’s side, body seeking warmth. Ed obliged, forgoing his usual preference for sleeping on his back in order to curl around his skeletal little brother, wrapping his thin, shivering frame closer.

“If you’re this cold, we should ask for another blanket,” Ed said, his frown humorous from that close up.

“Then the nurses will force you back to your own bed,” Al pointed out.

Ed grunted in a way that was meant to portray that he’d just come right back to Al’s side, and that no nurse could stop him. Al smiled softly back. Because he _could_ smile, now. Because his brother was right beside him again, and Al was able to curl close to him, and there was a thin flesh arm tucked half underneath Al’s body and a bandaged flesh arm thrown around Al’s body. Because he wouldn’t have believed, a few months ago, that his brother would turn so greedy for physical touch, or that Al would be able to let him without worrying about cold metal and too-strong, crushing grips. He wouldn’t have believed that he would _need_ his brother to be so greedy. They’d slept beside each other on the same futon or bed or patch of ground even until days before the human transmutation, but he couldn’t ever remember them curling up as close as they had every one of the three nights since Al had gotten his body back.

“Brother?” Ed grunted, more asleep than awake. He hadn’t let himself sleep, much, the first night or so, but had instead kept watch over Al as the nurses panicked about his weight, his inability to eat, his muscle atrophy, his insomnia born from years of forced deprivation. Even in the moonlight and the muted lights from the hospital hallway, Al could see how exhausted Ed looked. “You... want to be here, right?”

Because Ed _understood_ what Al wanted, even when Al tried very hard not to express his desires out loud. His brother had been able to read things from a suit of armour. Had been able to read Al’s soul since before then, besides. And it was not a leap of any great measure to assume that Ed would be there, squashed into Al’s bed, awkwardly holding him around the tubes and the wires, even if he didn’t really want to be. Even if he still wanted to shy away from any more affection than his usual hard-won and deeply meant displays. Even if he wanted to rest the arm tucked tightly around Al because he’d torn the stitches again that morning, and it had to still be aching.

“’g’t’sleep, Al,” Ed yawned at him. And then grunted a little, involuntarily, when Al shifted into a more comfortable position and ended up whacking an uncoordinated, bony elbow into Ed’s bruised ribs. “’s fine,” he said, before Al could do more than draw the breath the apology was to ride on.

The bony flesh arm attempted to pat Al on the shoulder, and ended up kind of sloppily flopping around somewhere close to Al’s nose, barely leaving the mattress. And still Ed didn’t open his eyes. Al snorted in fond laughter at his idiot brother, and then settled his head on Ed’s shoulder, already feeling the lure of sleep begin to wash over him.

* * *

Al woke to his head resting awkwardly on Ed’s shoulder, a painful crick in his neck and lower back. Immediately, he hoisted his brother further upright and checked his temperature. Ed was still too hot, but wasn’t sweating any more, and Al’s gut lurched in worry. He took a single, measured mouthful of the very little water they had left in the stolen canteen and tried to coax some down Ed’s throat. But his brother did not swallow. And did not wake.

When his stiff arms ached too much to continue putting drops of water into Ed’s mouth, Al closed the canteen and sat back, ignoring the aching desire to take another sip of water himself. The ingrained desire to go and find somewhere safer and with supplies whispered loudly in Al’s head, and he had to keep beating it back with the knowledge that _he_ wouldn’t make it far in his condition, not to speak anything about Ed. Leaving his brother behind was not an option. Al’s mind wandered between memory and daydream and nothingness, caught in itself, unproductive and lethargic despite the underlying note of urgency about their current position. There were alchemy symbols barely visible on the broken walls and destroyed pillars around him. They mocked him as silently as the stretch of desert just out of view from his current improvised shelter of stone; incomplete secrets that wouldn’t be the right answers even if he _did_ decipher them. Or, perhaps... didn’t alkahestry have its roots in these ruins, too? Alchemy did not heal, but the art that he’d given himself over to studying for close to a year and a half _did_. And maybe he could find...

Al laughed out loud at himself, rasping and mocking and hollow. There was no miracle waiting for him on the walls. Even if there was, there was little guarantee that he would be able to perform it, and not only because he was aching and weak. Oh, he’d been so _proud_ about what he’d learned under many friendly, strict, helpful, encouraging Xingese hands. So _proud_ of how hard he’d had to fight to understand a force that was foreign and new to him; to get rid of old patterns in his head so that the new concept of chi could slowly become something he _grasped_ instead of just understood intellectually. Everybody agreed that he was doing remarkably, satisfyingly well. He had been bursting to show Ed all he’d learned, and to explain the Dragon’s Pulse to his brother and have Ed say something profound without meaning to that Al could carry back to Xing with him.

The pride was buried in a crudely constructed dungeon in the middle of the desert where it had sunk deeper and deeper the more apparent it had become that neither his alchemy nor his alkahestry would _really_ help matters. Yes, Al had ensured that Ed was no longer bleeding out. He’d healed the worst of his own injuries and the worst of Ed’s, going so far as to patch together the most of the very bad breaks. But the bones weren’t _completely_ healed. Both of them were still bruised and hungry and dehydrated. Ed was still unable to breathe unless upright, and even then with such great difficulty. His fever still burned, relentless as the desert sun. And Al _could not help him._

Al’s thoughts turned to the Ishvalan woman and her son, and he wondered if they’d heeded his request to go for help. Then he wondered what he’d do if they hadn’t.

* * *

Al was cold. Despite the weather outside being sunny and despite the extra blanket – the thickest the hospital could supply, that time of year – he simply did not have enough calories to burn to keep warm, most of the time. He’d be feeling snug, or at least normal, one minute, and the next the cold would creep over him with startling determination, leaving him shivering and unable to generate enough warmth for the thick blanket to trap inside to warm him. But, of all the things his big brother could be accused of being oblivious about, Al’s well-being was not one of them, and it never took long for him to pick up when Al needed his body heat to trap under the blanket.

It was a little bit of an odd experience, learning to gage temperature again. Kind of – and it embarrassed him sometimes and thrilled him in others – like a small child who hadn’t yet learned how to regulate their own temperature or anticipate exactly what actions would cause what thermal reaction. He could pick up when being under the blanket was stifling for Ed, and was getting better at lying that he was properly toasty warm so that Ed could kick off his side of the blanket before he started sweating. There were probably better ways of doing things – hot water bottles, for one – but it was more convenient to have a ready-warm human to slip under the blankets with Al. And Ed was always a sort of warm that had nothing really to do with temperature; that oozed comfort into Al’s sore, tired muscles and aching bones.

The nurses had mostly given up trying to fight Ed’s blatant disregard for hospital policy, realising quickly that Ed ignored pretty much everything they told him about rules and about himself and kept vigilant record of everything they said about Al. And all of that combined was why it took anybody almost two days to realise that Ed was running a fever because the stitches in his arm had gotten infected. This time, it was Al who pitched a fit when the nurses tried to move Ed to his own bed. It _was_ just across the room, and Al was _maybe_ a bit irrational about it all, but he’d _always_ been able to be close to Ed when he’d been sick, and he couldn’t bear to have him out of reach. He did, however, strictly forbid Ed from getting under the blanket until his fever broke, and Ed simply retaliated by curling even _more_ around Al, managing to get their IV lines twisted.

Al was so extremely cold and hungry and sore. He couldn’t see where he was; the darkness was so thick that he couldn’t make out his hands in front of him, even when he raised them right to his face. Not for the first time, he wondered about the legitimacy of his brilliant idea of getting captured in order to stage a rescue. The men didn’t seem to have realised that Ed and Al were related – perhaps they didn’t know enough about Amestris to know that golden eyes and their exact shade of blonde were very uncommon – but in the five days that he’d been in custody they _had_ picked up on the fact that Al knew nothing about the secrets of Ishval that they were so desperate to get their hands on. They’d still tried to beat out one last confession from him two days prior – at least, Al _guessed_ it had been two days, but he really couldn’t be sure – but had since left him alone in the dark, allowing his wounds to slowly start healing.

Ed was another matter. They’d _seen_ him with Mustang’s crew, Ed had explained to Al when he’d finished being explosively angry at Al’s disregard for his own safety. They’d _seen_ him and Havoc mucking about and him being allowed to help Marcoh when others weren’t to touch the doctor’s things. So Ed had quickly moved on from _I don’t know_ to _I won’t tell you_ , and they were eager as vultures around a dying animal to prove his stubbornness a temporary, easily breakable thing.

Al miscounted the steps he was pacing and smacked into the wall of the windowless room, crudely hewn as everything else in the makeshift, mostly-stone base. After the stinging in his toes disappeared some he settled himself to the ground and began to meditate as he had when sleep had not been a possibility. Some unfathomable time later, the door cracked open without warning. Al’s eyes flew open at once, but he caught a mere glimpse of Ed being shoved in before the light disappeared. Al crawled toward the sound of the coughing and found his brother by touch, trying not to let his hands press harder than feather light against injuries, old and new, that he could not see. The involuntary moan that tore free from his brother as he continued to hack with undoubtedly broken ribs made the fury inside Al chill another degree and grow one span larger. It took a while to make sure that the wetness on Ed’s face and shirt was water and not blood, especially because Ed kept pawing at his mouth almost reflexively. He realised only much later the action was an automatic futility to remove whatever cloth they’d placed there to try and get him to talk.

“We should get to the corner,” Al said, because it would feel safer with something against their backs, and it was the only thing they could _do_ at that very moment.

But, though they tried, Ed was too weak and hurting to make it further than standing up, and Al couldn’t fully support him. So they folded back down to the floor and huddled where Ed had been thrown, trying to keep each other warm and sane and hopeful. Al started talking about the escape plan, so very close to being complete and near-foolproof, but Ed faded out on him and so Al returned to silence, rubbing absently at his brother’s right shoulder to try and stop the trembling in the limb.

* * *

Meeting in Xerxes had been Al’s idea. He hadn’t passed the ruins on his way to Xing, and he knew what it meant that Ed had mentioned wanting to go back to have a proper look around. What Ed wouldn’t say out loud was that he, like Al, wanted to go back to the place that had birthed Father, birthed Hohenheim, and killed thousands of souls who had helped save an entire country. It made sense, in Al’s mind, that they choose Xerxes to be their meeting place after their respective journeys to the East and West – where better to reunite and start to share their respective discoveries than the place of origin of the sciences they were both researching? Ed had given a token grumble about it over the phone, but Al hadn’t even had to work hard to get him to agree.

Al set up camp alone when there was no sight of Ed upon his arrival, and spent nearly a week starting to decipher the most intact stone markings as he waited for his brother’s arrival. There was no panic, only fond amusement; Ed’s usual lack of punctuality mixed with unpredictable means of travel from outside of Amestris and the presumed fact that Ed would be waylayed by his decision to visit Mustang and Riza and the team rebuilding Ishval before heading to Xerxes made perfectly good explanations for his brother’s temporary absence. In fact, when he woke to eyes watching him from a distance eight days after his arrival, his first muddled thought was that his brother had finally decided to arrive, sheepish and blaming Mustang for everything, as usual. But in the next second it became apparent it was not his brother watching – the boy was only about eight, and extremely wary of Al, and Ishvalan besides. Ed had told him how a small group of refugees had chosen Xerxes as their home, but Al had assumed, by the deserted state he'd found the once-city in, that they had chosen to return to the budding beginnings of the new Ishval. 

"Hello," Al called to the boy. "Don't worry, I won't hurt you." The boy took a hesitant step forward, and then another. "Do you live here? I didn't mean to just come into your home," Al said politely. "I'm waiting for my brother to arrive. But he won't hurt you, either."

Despite his reassurance, the boy halted at Al's mention of a brother. His eyes widened, and then he spun around and took off, and no amount of hasty reassurances flung at his back made him pause. Al spent the day mulling it over, coming to the conclusion that the Ishvalan refugees had more right to this place than he and Ed did. It would disappoint him terribly if he had to leave without being able to see the ruins properly, but if he made the rest of the refugees as nervous as he'd made the little boy then he knew walking away was the best course of action, at least for the time being. 

The sun had begun to set when the boy returned, hand tucked safely into an older woman's. Al had started with an apology and the offer to move. 

"We did think of making this a temporary home," the woman said, voice quiet and wary. "Those who were here before us and chose to leave told us to come here to meet the remnant. But we hadn't been here long before the men came. They were... asking questions about the Ishval rebuilding. They were not happy. We thought it best to get out of their way, and fast, before they turned those questions to us. Or worse than questions."

"I can help you find the right people to tell who can offer you protection," Al said, at once, hands tightening into fists at the thought of people actively, violently protesting Ishval's restoration.

But the woman had shaken her head. "I'm not here to ask for your help. My son told me you're waiting for your brother."

"He's not a threat, I promise. We're both –"

"Does he look like you?"

In that moment, Al could only think how often people phrased it that way – assuming he was the eldest and, therefore, he had the first claim to the distinctive looks he and Ed shared. "Yes. Why do you ask?"

"He was here. The men angry about Ishval came here for him. They were asking him...that's how we knew to run from them. They took him. We could run, undetected, because he allowed himself to be taken. Whether he knew we needed the distraction or not we... He helped save us. Therefore we thought you deserved to know."

It took a few beats that felt like seconds and hours at once for Al's brain to understand the situation; to make the deductions and realise the terrible truth in a crash of horror and fear.

"Who are they?" This, the Ishvalans could not answer. "Which way did they go?"

He was given only a vague idea of a direction. But, with ice in his veins and far less of a plan than he usually had when rushing into battle, Al hastily packed all he had and ran off after those who had taken his brother. 

* * *

If Al drank the rest of the water, it might make a crack in his deep, aching thirst and tide him over for another hour or so. If he used it to try and get Ed’s fever down, it would evaporate on a warm face and, at best, help very temporarily. Both were feeble attempts to delay what seemed to be an inevitably, and they were the only attempts left at that point. Al contemplated the options – contemplated what his last attempted strike against death would be – as the dawn slowly broke around him. There were flickers of unreal things at the corners of his eyes, and his head pounded a steady counter-rhythm to his heart. Everything felt surreal and like it was too much effort; perhaps Sloth had been right all along. At least, this way, neither Ed nor Al would have to try the impossible of living without the other. At least, this way, Xerxes would claim its final two souls in its own arms. 

The shadow seemed like another one of those hallucination flickers as it crept closer, warped by the way the makeshift cave of stones that the brothers were under blocked the light. In the first few moments that Al noticed it, his stupor convinced him it was Truth coming closer to reveal himself also as Death. All of a sudden, logic and reality kicked in so hard they shot adrenalin to Al's entire system, and he nearly gave his position away with a gasp of realisation, of coming awake, of instant fear and determination. 

He maneuvered Ed off him a little rougher than he should have, just so that he could get his arms free enough to clap and press a palm against the stone behind him. The deep rumbling and cracking of the stone obeying him sounded like a string of gunshots, but a shadow fist shot out and grabbed the shadow person tightly in its hold. Propping Ed up against the wall as best he could, Al dragged himself to his feet on determination and adrenalin alone. Even then, he had to lean against the pillar for nearly a minute before he could wobble forward with enough clarity that he could walk almost upright and almost straight without the urge to be sick. He tried to keep an eye out for other shadows and sounds, but his ears were ringing and everything was blurring and spinning and the pain in his head was distracting enough on its own, not to mention his bruises and stiffness and hunger shakes. This defence was as futile as his fight against dehydration, but Al would fight anyway. No common kidnappers would be able to boast that they'd felled Ed without Al putting up a fight to protect his brother.

Al finally made it to his fist of stone, leaning heavily against the rocks and trying to keep his shaking arms close together so he could clap quickly, fear of rebound be damned. His eyes met those of the person wrapped tightly in the transmuted fist, and recognition hit a moment before she relaxed her tense stance.

"Alphonse," Riza greeted, sounding a strange mix of relieved and worried.

Al was too stupefied to even be embarrassed how close to bursting into tears he was at that moment. "Riza," he croaked, and then just leaned and stared at her. 

"It's me," she confirmed, firm but gentle. When Al didn't move she thought for a moment and then said, "The last time we met, we came to Resembool on our way back to Central. The Brigadier General set Edward's socks on fire and Ed placed some of of the pieces in Mustang's pie."

Al realised a moment later that she thought he was attempting to confirm her identity, and the ridiculousness of the story she used as proof snapped him into action. As soon as Riza was free she hurried to his side and placed her hands on his shoulders to steady him, eyes and professionally brisk touch checking him over. 

"How are you injured?"

Al shook his head twice, but then stopped because it hurt and made him even dizzier. "It's Brother. Please, Riza, you have to help Brother. He's –"

"Alphonse, I will attend to Ed as quickly as I can. But unless he's bleeding out, then you are my first point of action right now because you are the only other person capable of helping me should we be attacked. What are your injuries?"

"Um.... Bruises. A few bad ones over bones. I think some ribs may still be broken. I'm... dizzy. Feeling a little sick. Bad headache. But I think those are because we didn't manage to refill water. I don't know where the settlers found any out here. I looked. When we first arrived I looked. But I couldn't find any and then I... just stopped looking," he realised in surprised disgust. "I just stopped thinking to look. Why did I –?"

"Al, please look at me and focus on me," Riza interrupted, slinging off her pack and opening it. "I need you to take very slow and small sips. When I tell you to stop, please stop. You may have more in the next ten minutes, but having too much will only make you sicker. Do you understand?" A bottle of water. She was holding water out to him. Al's hand shook as he reached for it. "Al, do you understand?"

Only he nodded did Riza release the bottle, but she moved closer to support him while he took small, slow sips under her instruction, obeying her rather than the instinct to gulp down every drop without so much as taking a breath. When it was time for him to stop drinking for the while, Riza pulled the bottle away, still pressed close to his side, and asked the one thing that would make Al forget about the desire to quench his thirst.

"Where's Ed?"

As she supported him back to his brother, Al explained the basics in pants and gasps and a slightly disjointed narrative – how he'd come to Xerxes and had assumed Ed was delayed in Ishval. How the Ishvalan woman and her son explained what they'd seen happen. How he'd spent almost three weeks tracking his brother in the desert, unsure he was going the right way, unsure what he was even looking for, surviving only because he'd been taught what underground roots to eat and how to use alkahestry to find underground water. How he finally stumbled across the bunker, and let himself be captured on a desperate hope that his brother was inside. How he'd found Ed starving, hurt and being tortured for information he would not give. 

Riza came to a full halt at that, even though Al was telling the facts facts as dispassionately and hurriedly as he could. Her grip on Al tightened, then relaxed as she exhaled, and when she pulled Al the last few steps to his brother she did so even quicker than before. Ed had slumped down the wall some when they returned, and Al all but collapsed beside him and pulled him into his arms.

"He can't breathe unless he's upright. Water in his lungs, he said, and I don't know how to get it out. I think... I don't know how they –"

"I do," Riza interrupted, her voice and face like steel. There was a burning in her eyes as she said it and took Ed in that made Al snap his mouth closed at once and shrink back a little. Riza opened her pack again and began taking out supplies. "What are his other pressing injuries?"

"None. I healed as much as I could – bruises and minor breaks are left. But he's no longer bleeding or severely injured."

"Well done, Al," Riza said gently as she injected Ed with a needle from her bag. "For the fever," she explained. "Doctor Marcoh also sent IV fluids and taught me how to insert them. I'm going to put one in Ed first and then get one for you, okay?" Al nodded. "What happened after you found Ed? Did they... did they hurt you, too?"

Al watched her work on his brother, mesmerised a little by the quick, steady motions of her hands. If he didn't know her so well, he wouldn't have picked up her very slight air of nervousness at doing something so important when she wasn't familiar enough with it to meet her own standards of excellence. As he watched, he told her about his own questioning and how quickly it ended when they bought into his lie that he knew slightly less than he actually did. He told her how he'd tried to keep the lie alive that he didn't know Ed at all; had simply gotten lost in the desert and had stumbled upon their bunker in genuine error. He told her his plan to break out and how he executed it. How he dragged Ed to the first shelter he could think of as fast as he could. He told her how, a day or so after he'd stumbled to the ruins again, when the plan was still to find water and supplies and get Ed a little more on his feet before heading to Ishval or, at the very least, some border post or nearby town or _something_ , Al had stumbled across the Ishvalan mother and child again and had begged them to go to Ishval to alert Mustang. They'd given him food and water and no promises, and he'd had to let them go with hope that his plea would override their distrust and fear for the site of their nightmares. 

"They did find you, didn't they?"

"Yes. We got word of a very small group of Ishvalans just outside the city. Many hover to watch and wait. When they hadn't moved on for two days, we sent an Ishvalan elder to meet them; to explain and invite them closer and ask what we could do to make them less afraid of us. He hurried back and broke the news." Riza gently taped up Al's fingers. He hadn't even realised they were injured that badly. "I could leave right away – the Brigadier General put my leave in for sick leave under sudden woman complications. Nobody looks closely at that. They planned to leave no more than a day after I did. They're coming, Al, and then we'll get you both to safety." Al closed his eyes and nodded and hoped she didn't see the tears that welled up in his eyes. "When was the last time Ed woke?" She paused. "And that you slept?"

"Brother was awake off and on until about three days ago. Then he just... He wouldn't. I've been sleeping. Off and on."

"You should lie down and get some proper sleep." He opened his mouth at once to refuse, but she shook her head firmly at him. "I will guard you both with my life, Al. And I will wake you as soon as I need to. As _soon as_."

"But Brother needs to be kept upright or else he can't breathe."

"I know. And I'm capable of keeping him upright. Al, please trust me."

She didn't seem to take offence to his moments of continued hesitation, but held his gaze as he thought. Eventually, Al pushed aside the need to ensure Ed was safe by being the one to make him so, and gently relinquished his brother into Riza's arms. Following her instructions, he placed his IV bag high on a rock and then curled up underneath it, his booted feet propped on Ed’s calf and toes brushing Riza's side. 

He didn't struggle to fall asleep, and half-woke only once, startled into half sitting up by a nightmare that carried the fearful need to act into the waking world. He found Riza still cradling Ed across her lap, his head tucked onto her shoulder, one hand near her gun by her side and the other carding almost absently through Ed’s mostly loose, filthy, matted hair. He lay back down and went back to sleep at once.

* * *

He’d tried to deny the truth for what felt like miles upon miles of endless sand, but Al finally had to admit that he needed to put his brother down. Ed roused somewhat as Al lowered him to the middle of the sand, probably awoken by the jostling against the injuries Al hadn’t been able to heal if the whimpers he couldn’t quite mask were any indication. He thought about attempting more alkahestry – he could tell his brother had been in great pain since the last time he’d been dragged from the cell for _questioning_ – but the wind was blowing too hard for him to be sure the transmutation circle would stay perfectly etched into the sand. They were running low on water, too, and soon Al would have to chance the slight wind to try and transmute water from underground. For the moment, though, he did nothing except sit beside his brother in the cool sand, letting Ed lean against his shoulder as he dozed. They were wasting time, Al knew. They were especially exposed as the dawn turned to true morning around them, Al knew. They were probably being gained on, by men in better shape than Al was in who didn’t have to carry their big brother on their back across the sand. Ed had tried his best to keep walking mostly under his own power, but his moments of lucidity had grown fewer and fewer even during the last few days of their imprisonment, and walking was clearly a huge struggle besides, and it wasn’t long into their escape before Al had gently told him it would go faster and easier if he just rode piggyback. 

The heat of Ed’s fever against Al’s side suddenly made Al realise that the day was getting warmer as well as lighter, and that the blasting heat of a full day out in the desert would bring a problem that escaping after nightfall hadn’t yet made them have to navigate: consistent heat and Ed’s automail. After some time deliberating the problem, Al roused his brother, gave him some sips of precious water and told him his plan to transmute the leg off. He knew enough about Ed’s leg to break very little of it, and promised to take the brunt of Winry’s wrath. His forced smile at the levity disappeared at Ed’s reply. 

“You won’t have to do much. They… uh… they took it off. Put it back on, but did it… wrong. The nerves… _Please_ take it off.”

“Brother, you should have _said_ ,” Al whispered, horrified, the implications like acid darts in his heart. He started fumbling with Ed’s leg, shaky in his hurry. “Why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

“Would have messed with the plan,” Ed said, firmly, around a small cough. “Can’t put it on right again without Win fixing what they broke.”

“I would have made a plan! I would have –” Al broke off at Ed’s look, knowing that his brother’s stubbornness would not have allowed the risky plan to have been made riskier because of him. 

Al bit his tongue to stop the words, suddenly wishing he’d cracked more bones in the escape. Incorrectly connected nerves… Ed must have been in _so much_ pain, even without walking on the leg, and he’d stubbornly refused to say anything, let alone allow himself some respite. 

“Can we take it with, though?” Ed rasped. “The leg. It’s…It’s, uh...”

“Special? I heard Winry say that when she installed it before we left.” 

“Yeah.” Ed turned his head and coughed harshly, wrapping his arm around his middle as he did. 

“We can take it,” Al said, because Ed was ruthlessly practical in situations such as that, and so him asking to lug the heavy metal limb across the desert _meant_ something. 

“If… if it gets too heavy… You’re already carrying me…” Ed coughed again, long enough that Al rubbed his back. 

“If it does, I’ll have to leave it,” Al agreed gently. 

He saw the places they’d messed with his brother’s leg easily and, stewing with anger at the thought of them even daring to strap Ed down to fiddle around with something his brother usually hid from the world, Al used their seam of brokenness to remove the leg. He had to hold Ed steady for a few minutes, and pretend not to hear his brothers soft curses through hissed teeth that petered into more coughing. And then, once Ed was done riding out the wave of pain, Al put the leg in the pack of stolen goods, put the pack on Ed’s back and Ed on his. 

And he continued walking. 

* * *

After sleep, the IV fluids and some food and water, Al had to slip around the corner from Riza to take care of business. While already up, he took a small glance around the perimeter before his legs started shaking and he turned back to the makeshift camp. The murmur of Riza’s voice reached him as he got closer, and he glanced at her reflexively when she came into view. She looked up to meet his eyes when he approached, and gave him a warm smile. 

“Told you he was just around the corner,” she said fondly. 

Ed’s eyes blinked open, gaze a little unfocused but undoubtedly there. Al bolted forward without even thinking about it, falling to his knees right in front of Ed and then flinging himself onto his brother. The fear had been held at bay by his own disorientation, but seeing his brother awake after so long had knocked so much relief into Al that the true danger of the situation they’d been in – were still in, to some degree – had hit home. Ed’s shaking arms snaked around him without hesitation, and Al held on for as long as he could until consideration for Riza, who was still holding Ed from behind, made him reluctantly pull away and crawl off of Riza’s leg that he hadn’t realised he’d been kneeling on. She waved away his apology with a smile. 

“Y’kay, Al?” 

“I’m fine, Brother. How do you feel?”

Ed shrugged his left shoulder. “Tired.”

“You can go back to sleep once you’ve had something to drink and some more medication. Al, please would you look in the bag for it?”

Ed’s token protest was more of an incoherent mumble that both Riza and Al ignored. Ed tried to keep himself upright, seemingly too embarrassed to lean against Hawkeye, and when Al returned they shared a silent glance before switching positions. Ed sank against his brother’s chest, coughing slightly and looking already worn out. Wordlessly, Al held out the medication to his brother and Ed reached for it automatically with his right arm. But the limb was trembling badly, fingers twitching too sporadically for him to grip the medication, and with a grimace Ed reached with his left hand instead. 

“Are you okay?” Al asked quietly, aware of Riza’s concerned gaze and his brother’s usual desire to keep his weaknesses quiet. 

Ed shrugged, not meeting Al’s eye. “Yeah. It… gets this bad sometimes.” Riza didn’t ask, but Ed forced himself to meet her eyes and mumbled, “Got my arm back, but still have some of the metal plating and connections in my shoulder. Caused some nerve damage.”

Riza nodded, once, with a small smile. “I noticed signs before,” she admitted, softly. “Thank you for telling me.”

“I didn’t… I didn’t tell those men anything. About Ishval. I –”

“Ed.” Riza actually put both her hands on him, careful to avoid his right shoulder just in case. “I _know_. We all know.”

Al felt his brother relax fully and, not long after, Ed was asleep against him, breathing better than it had been in a while. Al kept massaging his brother’s right shoulder blade until exhaustion finally took, him, too, pulling him under just after he felt Riza slip in beside him to give him something more comfortable to lean on. 

* * *

The shot only missed because Riza happened to duck down to reach for the water at that exact moment. By the time Al had registered what the cracking noise was, Riza was already flat on the ground and barking at Al to lower Ed and himself down. Al did so and then transmuted them some cover, allowing Riza to start shooting back. Al rose to his feet just a little bit slower, spared his slowly waking brother a glance and a yell to _stay down_ before he threw himself into the fray. 

He was still weak and sore, but only two of the men were alchemists, and none of them were as determined and angry as Riza and Al were. Much like the fear hadn’t hit him until he saw his brother awake, the anger at what those men had done to Ed didn’t hit Al until they were in front of him again. With a snarl of cold fury, Al unleashed himself on his captors, thoughts of mercy much further from his mind than usual. 

Perhaps that was why they got a shot in so early – his emotions made him reckless and careless. Or perhaps it was just the weakness still in his limbs. In any case, the fight had barely begun before Al was crashed back into the pillars hard enough that the world faded out. And it didn’t completely fade back in again. His ears were ringing, vision blurring and things multiplying sickeningly as he tried to look. But Al still forced himself upright, trying to find Riza and Ed and the closest opponent all at once before he forced himself to choose one at a time. He could only get to his knees, but he risked a transmutation to stop Riza from getting hit with the other side’s transmutation. The effort left him reeling, and when he faded back into consciousness, he couldn’t quite remember what he was supposed to be doing. His brain kept telling him there was an important sound somewhere close, and he tried to figure out what it was. 

“Al,” Ed rasped, and as soon as Al identified the sound he turned to find it. 

The horror was a kick to the gut more painful than even the throbbing in his aching head. Ed was trapped underneath a pillar, left arm scrambling uselessly against the sand. It nearly split Al’s head in two, but he stumbled to his feet and, when he collapsed a few steps later, crawled toward his brother, vision blurring, nausea rising until it overcame him. But still he forced himself forward, shaking and collapsing and then crawling again, desperate to get to Ed. When hands grabbed him he tried to punch instinctively, and how far he missed his intended task was almost funny. 

“Alphonse, it’s us, you’re safe.” Breda. It was Breda. 

“Brother,” he gasped. 

“We’ve got him. Hey, Al, stay with me. Don’t you –”

* * *

Al came to with a mouth full of sand and cotton wool, his vision still blurred. Even moving his head hurt and left him reeling, and the urge to simply fade back to black was almost stronger than his desire to find Ed. As though the thought had conjured his brother, Al’s eyes managed to focus on the blur of golden hair just to his right. There was blood on the sand around him, and on the bandages swathed to his right side, and if Mustang wasn’t so calm as he sat and held Ed upright, Ed’s head in the crook of his shoulder, Al would have been much more worried. 

As it was, he made himself watch Mustang tuck Ed closer almost subconsciously before he let the darkness take him again. 

* * *

“You’re keeping something from me,” Al said, softly, not able to look at Riza where she sat beside his bed. 

She was quiet for a moment. “Yes, we are.”

“Something about Ed. The real reason I can’t see him.”

“He really _was_ in quarantine, Al. His chest infection was bad enough they would have been running even in a proper hospital. Marcoh is good, no doubt, but Ishval is still mostly ruins, and we have very little to work with. We can’t be too careful. Besides, you’re only well enough to sit up today.”

“But there’s something _else_ ,” Al pressed. 

“Yes. And that’s something Ed has asked to tell you himself.”

Al tried not to snap at Riza, knowing it wasn’t her fault. He still couldn’t look at her, though, even when she placed her arm on his wrist and squeezed supportively before she left. The heavy feeling of dread lasted until the next day, when Al was finally allowed to slip into the curtained-off area that served as Ed’s room. 

“Brother,” he breathed, because Ed looked pale and small in the makeshift bed like he hadn’t in years, and it made Al’s heart ache. 

Ed’s eyes flew open. “Al? Are you okay?” His eyes raked over the bandage on Al’s head as Al sat beside him on the bed, hand with the IV in it reaching out to grab Al’s wrist. 

“I’m fine. I’m getting better. Brother, what is going _on_?” Al said, voice cracking with desperation. “What aren’t you letting them tell me?”

Ed’s eyes slid away from his, and Al’s heart plummeted further. That was _never_ a good sign. “Al, I just… How much do you remember?”

“Not… not a lot,” Al hedged. “Bits and pieces… _Why_?”

“I just… I need you to…” Ed broke off to cough a little, then forced himself on. “I don’t want you to blame yourself, okay? It wasn’t your fault. It really wasn’t. It’s…”

“What? Brother, _what_?” Al’s voice was high with panic, eyes all over his brother, mind running wild. 

And then he realised _why_ Ed reminded him so much of his younger self. Looking that closely, he could see the empty nothingness where the impression of Ed’s right arm should have been if it was under the covers. Al’s blood froze, and a ringing started in his ears. He wasn’t sure what noise he made, but it was pulled from somewhere deep inside of him. 

“They had to amputate,” Ed said, speaking every word like a scientific term as Al shakily reached out and pulled the blanket away, disbelieving until he saw the truth before his eyes. 

“ _No_ ,” Al moaned, deep and guttural. “Oh _no_. No, that’s not _fair_.”

Ed gripped his wrist again, too-thin face bruised and worried.“Alphonse,” is all he said. “ _Al_.”

Al shook his head and pulled away, emotions overwhelming him to the point that he felt dizzy again. Sick. His heart was breaking, and he didn’t know how to handle it. Ed was pushing himself upright laboriously, mouth moving and eyes wide with concern, but Al just shook his head and bolted. His legs gave way a few feet away from the building, and Al let himself kneel on the ground and cry, until the grief gave way to anger. Beating the ground did nothing. Shouting at Truth and anything else that listened did nothing but make his voice hoarse and his head pound again, but Al couldn’t stop until he had no strength left at all. 

He was so hollow that he was barely surprised when he looked up to find Mustang a little way off, watching the rolling desert around them. For one moment, anger at the man rose so sharp and bitter that Al nearly wanted to get to his feet and go and punch him in the face. It wasn’t _fair_. Mustang had paid the toll with his eyes, and he’d gotten his sight back. Al had paid the price with his body, and had gotten it back with no complications. Ed had paid the toll with two limbs, had only gotten one back, and how had paid again. A double toll. Senselessly taken in the middle of some desert because of Mustang’s efforts to rebuild and Mustang’s team’s late arrival. 

As though sensing the anger, Mustang turned to look at Al, expression calm. Al finally looked away, the anger ebbing as logic took over once again. Logic and grief. 

“Your brother is looking for you,” Mustang said, quietly. “They had to tie him to the bed to stop him from trying to run after you.” 

Al nodded, ashamed, and got to his feet. Mustang waited until he was beside him before he started walking back. “He paid the price already,” Al whispered, unable to keep it inside. 

“I know,” Mustang said back, voice heavy. 

Ed was asleep when Al slipped back into the room, so he kicked off his shoes and crawled onto the makeshift bed beside him, carefully avoiding the patched-together IV line and the fact that he only fit without lying on top of Ed because there was a missing limb on Ed’s right side. He tucked Ed close, and Ed murmured something in his sleep before curling closer himself, and Al let himself cry a little so that, if Ed woke, he knew it would be okay for him to cry, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Conveniently knocks out the narrating character so she doesn't have to write a fight scene. Conveniently keeps the bad guys vague so she doesn't have to flesh anything about them out at all. Posts this two days late and without checking for any autocorrect typos from when she had to write this on her old 2010 phone. 
> 
> Oh, yeah. I do this writing thing good.


End file.
